


the Moon is distant from the Sea.

by Caracalliope



Category: Final Fantasy XV, Sunless Sea
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fusion, Defiance, Devils, Gen, Gods, Memory Loss, Reincarnation, Sea-longing, job offer
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-14
Updated: 2019-04-14
Packaged: 2020-01-13 12:06:15
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 946
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18468619
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Caracalliope/pseuds/Caracalliope
Summary: and yet, with amber hands,she leads him – docile as a boy –along appointed sands





	the Moon is distant from the Sea.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [egelantier](https://archiveofourown.org/users/egelantier/gifts).



> love u.

They say the Barefoot Captain has been touched by the Moon. They say it’s in the sheen of her hair, the chill of her eyes. All they really mean is she is good for to the Royal Bethlehem, but no-one is brave enough to take her there.

The Sightless Lamplighter collects rumors about her, methodically, for no reason he could explain. Perhaps he finds solace in it. The Captain is feared and occasionally worshiped. He’s heard no tales of excessive cruelty, nor anything salacious beyond the usual Wolfstack fantasying. Instead, the stories are odder, told in a hushed tone. She foretold the appearance of Mt Nomad, she felled a Lifeberg with a touch of her hand. She saved a cabin girl, with a touch of her other hand. She screams at the dead. Even in home waters, even with the lights on, she speaks to a young man who isn’t there.

It happened near Codex, the stories say (or Whither, or Frostfound, or beyond). Her ship was attacked by a thing with a thousand (four thousand, ten thousand) tendrils. She ordered the whole crew belowdeck, and she only had her trident. She threw her boots to her lover, first, to the bottom of the zee. Ordinary MERCURY boots - ratskin, calfskin, or devilhide. Then she stood alone on her deck, and all three gods of the zee rose up to laugh at her hubris.

Stone, she sank. Salt, she melted. Storm fled from her courage and grace. And the many-tendriled thing bowed, because the Captain shone with a light it had never seen before. Gentler than the killing Sun. More pitiless than the stars.

That’s what they say at the Blind Helmsman, anyway. And the Lamplighter remembers. He has no use for religion, but there is something that draws him to the story. Who was the young man, sunk so far down beneath the waves? Did he ever get the shoes?

There are no answers to be found in the Docks. He starts saving up for a ticket, but he doesn't know the destination.

* * *

The Sightless Lamplighter gets home one night, drenched in oil and gutter filth. There was a brawl on the way he could not avoid. Didn’t want to, maybe.

There’s someone in his rooms. He lingers at the doorframe, reaching for his dagger. The scent of sulphur is undeniable.

“Close the door, will you,” snaps the devil. “I’m here to recruit _you_ , not the whole damn inn.”

“Recruit me. Why? Has Hell developed a lighting problem? Brilliant souls all flickering out? What an inconvenience.” The Lamplighter shouldn’t be taunting this beast, but fuck it. It’s been a bad day.

“I don’t work for Hell,” says the devil. His voice is less honeyed than would be proper for his kind. “I work for my sister.”

“Oh! A family trade, presumably in souls. I see.”

“Insolent ass,” said the devil. “I work for my sister - the Captain.”

The Barefoot Captain’s one-armed gunnery officer, a recent addition to her legendarium. She saved a devil from the Dawn Machine, and called him her brother. Daintier Wolfstack folk shuddered at the thought.

The Lamplighter nods, an odd joy rising to his throat. He didn’t know she’s in London again.

“Usually, she just sends her hellhound to deliver her summons,” says the devil. “But you’ve no use for written messages, so I was judged an acceptable alternative to the dog.”

“Same pedigree?” the Lamplighter didn’t mean to let that one slip. The answering hiss might have been annoyance, or something else.

“Why is she summoning me?” The Lamplighter asks. “Is it me in particular, or would any sober lamplighter do? I know of one up in Spite. A murderess, but quite conscientious.”

“We do well with candles on board.”

“Am I summoned for a tryst, then?” It’s happened before, though not so formally. The Lamplighter is blind and scarred and charmless, but he does have hygiene on his side. Usually.

“Luna is hiring you,” says the devil, sharp. The name stings, and the Lamplighter doesn’t know why. “She needs you as her first officer.”

“A blind man with no training. Is she _insane_?”

The devil makes a dismissive noise, an eh of non-agreement. “She says you’ll do fine. She says that you know a lot about being second in command.”

“She doesn’t even know me,” the Lamplighter says. She shouldn’t even know _of_ him.

“She knew me,” says the devil. “I never met her before, but she knew me down to my -”

“Your soul?”

“My marrow. And she knows you too - your legacy and your ambition. The deaths you had before. She sees it, feels it somehow.”

The Lamplighter’s nowhere near genteel enough for the Royal Bethlehem. If he believes it, he’ll end up raving in the Flit with the rats and the bats.

“I have no ambition,” he says, and it tastes like a lie, for no good reason. “I have no reason to agree.”

“Of course you do,” rasps the devil. The scent of gunpowder is not unpleasant. “You and Luna, you’re the same kind of idiot. You want him back.”

Yes. “No. Want who back?”

“The one who slipped under the waves. The one you made a deal for, in a past life.”

The Lamplighter steps back, his back against the door. A name is searing him from the inside.

“Come with me,” says the devil. “She’ll tell you who he was, and who you were.”

“I know who he was,” Ignis says. The warmth is rising to his skin, for the first time in so long. “Take me to her, please.”

“Idiots,” the devil grunts again, and lays a hand on Ignis’s shoulder to guide him.


End file.
